Last year I reviewed the off road racing title from EnjoyUp games ‘Rock ‘N Racing Off Road DX’, and it was a great blast from the past with some cool features but it lacked the control element to give it an authoritative status as an ID great, regardless of the fun it offered.
Well a year on and we get the grand prix version.
It’s got all the basic elements to make a great racer, 10 tracks set as close to the real world tracks in the respective countries they are located in and enough cars on the grid to make even the slower racer involved.
It’s nothing groundbreaking but for sub £7 what do you expect? Colours are bright and tracks clear until the near over the top camera gets covered by a tree and you clip the barrier and go from 1st to 10th. Whilst it’s not groundbreaking, most will be able to appreciate the simple style it offers and whilst it’s called Rock ‘N Racing some might expect a huge soundtrack, personally I heard nothing but engines and screeching (yes the volume was up for music) Perhaps this was due to the focus required to get to the front of the grid, simple racers also come with simple physics and unfortunately this is where the game is a HUGE let down.
So before I get to the real issue I’ll help you with the background, being able to earn tokens after each race (based on position of course) enables you to use these tokens for upgrades to, Speed, Acceleration, Brakes, Turbo and Tires and sure they are definitely needed to progress and the cool thing is you are able to lower and raise the upgrades after each race, even to applied upgrades so if the twist and turns require better acceleration and less speed you can adjust. Personally I found tyres and acceleration more important as time went on, the issue was despite the best level tyres my car continually kept spinning out at times for no real reason.
On top of this comes the AI, clearly not Forza skills (but then that’s another debate) but at least don’t purposely crash into people, you thought 1st corner mayhem in the real world was intense, well, ramp it up because in Grand Prix Rock ‘N Racing over half the grid will usually get in a pile up of sorts. It’s infuriating and even more so if they hit you from behind, which can slow you down considerably or into the air like a fighter jet, then on top of that you end up colliding with the barrier it’s a instant termination of your speed, and unless your acceleration is maxed out it will take what seems like an age to speed up.
SUMMARY
It’s fun when it goes well, however more often than not it will go horribly wrong, the physics will frustrate you and untold restarts will occur to get a respectable position until you either get a bit of luck or manage to navigate the field early on to break away.
If the physics were balanced properly it could have been a gem of a title but as old lessons have not been learnt from the last one unfortunately for me it’s a 2 hour game at best.
When your game does not improve, neither does your score.
